New Residential Construction Report: March 2008

Today’s New Residential Construction Report continues to firmly demonstrate the intensity of the total washout conditions that now exist in the nation’s housing markets and particularly for new residential construction showing tremendous declines on both a peak and year-over-year basis to single family permits both nationally and across every region.

Single family housing permits, the most leading of indicators, again suggests extensive weakness in future construction activity dropping 46.42% nationally as compared to March 2007.

Moreover, every region showed significant double digit declines to permits with the West declining 56.8%, the Midwest declining 47.7%, the South declining 42.0%, and the Northeast declining 39.4%.

Keep in mind that these declines are coming on the back of last year’s record declines.

To illustrate the extent to which permits and starts have declined, I have created the following charts (click for larger versions) that show the percentage changes of the current values on a year-over-year basis as well as compared to the peak year of 2004.

Declines to single family permits have NOW ACCELERATED measurably in terms of monthly YOY declines, and the fact that we are now seeing declines of roughly 40%-60% on the back of 2006 and 2007 declines should provide a an unequivocal indication that the housing markets are by no means stabilizing.




Here are the statistics outlined in today’s report:

Housing Permits

Nationally

• Single family housing permits down 46.4% as compared to March 2007.

Regionally

• For the Northeast, single family housing down 39.4% as compared to March 2007.
• For the Midwest, single family housing permits down 47.7% as compared to March 2007.
• For the South, single family housing permits down 42.0% compared to March 2007.
• For the West, single family housing permits down 56.8% as compared to March 2007.

Housing Starts

Nationally

• Single family housing starts down 43.6% as compared to March 2007.

Regionally

• For the Northeast, single family housing starts down 30.4% as compared to March 2007.
• For the Midwest, single family housing starts down 51.5% as compared to March 2007.
• For the South, single family housing starts down 40.9% as compared to March 2007.
• For the West, single family housing starts down 48.3% as compared to March 2007.

Housing Completions

Nationally

• Single family housing completions down 27.4% as compared to March 2007.

Regionally

• For the Northeast, single family housing completions down 6.7% as compared to March 2007.
• For the Midwest, single family housing completions down 20.7% as compared to March 2007.
• For the South, single family housing completions down 30.5% as compared to March 2007.
• For the West, single family housing completions down 30.8% as compared to March 2007.

Keep in mind that this particular report does NOT factor in the cancellations that have been widely reported to be occurring in new construction.